Stop The Presses. Drudge Is A Hack.

by digby

I think it's just terrific that the media are finally seeing that Drudge is a hack, but Jesus H. Christ --- he had to start screaming that Obama was a socialist before they saw it?

For Halperin to describe Drudge as "semi-defanged" and to rib his "fifth-to-last refuge" is a seminal moment of sorts. Recall that Halperin is the person who originally coined the "Drudge rules our world" phrase.

That's not all. The Financial Times recently weighed in with a piece called "Shock: Drudge loses his grip on US media!"

Traffic? HuffPo vaulted ahead of Drudge in September, as did Politico. While those outlets' staffs are obviously far larger than Drudge's, this still represents a blow to the former ruler of the Internets.

It's worth noting that the view that Drudge's fearsome influence is a shadow of its former self was a pretty controversial view even during this cycle, the exclusive province of whacked out liberal bloggers. Eric Boehlert sounded the siren about Drudge's tumble from the throne (as we did), and Hillary-spokesperson-turned-blogger Phil Singer has been flogging this argument, too.

The simple truth is that whatever dominance Drudge had over the cable networks just doesn't mean what it once did.

Like I said, I'm glad he has lost his "credibility." But somebody needs to do some soul searching about why such a blatant, over-the-top right wing whore had such a hold on the Village in the first place and everybody acted like it was perfectly normal. It's 2008 fergawdsake and Drudge has been peddling wingnut oppo non-stop for over a decade. How he came to "rule their world" and how they came to openly admit such a bizarre outrageous thing should be the subject for an emergency blogger ethics panel. Stat.